Mornings on the Mall

Monday, March 30, 2020

Hosts: Vince Coglianese and Mary Walter

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Joe diGenova, Kelly Stanton and MyPillow’s Mike Lindell joined WMAL on Monday!

5am – A/B/C Trump Extends Social Distancing Guidelines To April 30 — Hopes That By June 1 ‘We’ll Be Well On Our Way To Recovery.’    President Donald Trump on Sunday night extended the coronavirus social distancing guidelines issued by the White House task force through the end of April.    Trump, speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden, said that in recent days the task force had reviewed its models and can now predict that the United States could expect to see a peak in coronavirus deaths in two weeks, and that he did not want to prematurely end the social distancing on April 12 as he previously stated.  “By June 1 we’ll be well on our way to recovery,” Trump added. “We have the best medical minds in the world tackling this disease.” […]     “The mitigation we are doing right now is having” a positive impact, Dr. Anthony Fauci added later in the briefing. “The decision to not prolong but extend this mitigation process until the end of April was a wise and prudent decision”   Dr. Deborah Birx also stated that the task force “reviewed 12 different models and then we went back to the drawing board.”  Trump stated that Fauci and Birx’s report would be summarized and released to the public on Tuesday.

5am – D         PELOSI GEARING UP FOR ANOTHER IMPEACHMENT?

• Pelosi Will Need “After-Action Review” Of Trump Coronavirus Response; “As The President Fiddles, People Are Dying”” In an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the White House’s delayed response to the coronavirus pandemic cost American lives. Pelosi also hinted there would be an investigation into the administration’s handling of the pandemic once things go back to normal. “I don’t know what the scientists said to him,” Pelosi stated. “When did this president know about this, and what did he know? What did he know and when did he know it? That’s for an after-action review.” “But as the president fiddles, people are dying. We just have to take every precaution.”

5am – E         Harry And Meghan Would Have To Ask Trump To Have U.S. Foot Security Bills. Trump Gives Them Their Answer Before They Ask.  Over the weekend, The Daily Mail ran a report concerning the security fees of former royals Harry and Meghan, now that the couple has headed to Los Angeles from Canada. Harry and Meghan would apparently have to ask President Donald Trump, whom the couple are not fans of, about having the United States take on their hefty security fees, according to the report: “Meghan Markle and Prince Harry face having to ask President Trump for ‘special help’ if they want Secret Service protection for their new life in LA, as Canadians bid the couple and their security costs farewell.    Trump will have the final say over whether the couple can have diplomatic protection in the US, because Harry will no longer be classed as an ‘international protected person’ when he completes the final phase of Megxit next week, according to a royal source. ” President Trump did not wait for Harry and Meghan to even have a chance to ask, informing the world via social media on Sunday that the former royals have been terribly mistaken if they thought we’d pay their expenses.

6am – A         GOOD NEWS ITEMS ON FIGHTING THE VIRUS:

• MORE THAN 9000 RETIRED ARMY MEDICAL PERSONNEL RESPOND TO CALL FOR ASSISTANCE: More than 9,000 retired soldiers have responded to the U.S. Army’s call for retired medical personnel to assist with the response to the n ovel coronavirus pandemic, as hundreds of active duty soldiers deploy to support Army field hospitals in New York and Seattle. Earlier this week, the Army sent a notification to more than 800,000 retired soldiers to gauge their willingness in returning to service in a volunteer capacity. In a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville called the initial response “very, very positive.”
• SHOP MAKING DR. FAUCI DOUGHNUTS: A doughnut shop in Rochester, N.Y., has recently seen business “explode” after they started decorating doughnuts with the likeness of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and one of the most respected immunologists in the world.
• L’OREAL MAKING SANITIZER AND N95 MASKS: The U.S. subsidiary of French haircare giant L’Oréal says it’s donating N95 breathing masks to hospitals in New Jersey and Arkansas, where its production facilities will also begin making hand sanitizer and other products badly needed to combat the coronavirus. Because they’re worth it. Manhattan-based L’Oréal USA this week announced a multi-tiered charitable campaign that also includes a $250,000 cash donation to the hunger-relief charity Feeding America, plus a guarantee t that the company will match individual employee contributions to virus-related charities by up to $25,000.
• CROCS DONATING 10,000 PAIRS OF SHOES: (CBS News) – The company announced the offer on Thursday, along with free shipping, too. “If you are a health care professional in need of our easy-to-clean, comfortable Croc shoes, we’ve got you covered,” Crocs said on Instagram. Crocs has set a goal of donating 10,000 pairs of shoes a day for as long as it can.
• GROWING NUMBER OF CEOs ARE DONATING THEIR SALARIES:  (Fox Business) – In some cases, top business leaders have forfeited their base salaries to ease the financial burden. FOX Business takes a look at companies whose CEOs have given up their pay during the coronavirus outbreak below.

6am – B/C     HYDROXYCLOROQUINE UPDATE:

• FDA issues emergency authorization of anti-malaria drug for coronavirus care:  The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, decades-old malaria drugs championed by President Donald Trump for coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence.  The agency allowed for the drugs to be “donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible,” HHS said in a statement, announcing that Sandoz donated 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to the stockpile and Bayer donated 1 million doses of chloroquine.
• MORE POSITIVE NEWS ON HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE… WSJ: An Update on the Coronavirus Treatment — Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin continue to show results for patients.  There is now new data supporting this treatment. Since then, Kansas City area physicians, including Joe Brewer, Dan Hinthorn and me, continue to treat many patients, and some have shown improvement. Major medical centers including the University of Washington and Mass General have added hydroxychloroquine to treatment options. […]    If added before the virus was introduced, the drug was highly effective in preventing cellular infection. Even later application markedly inhibited infection. Another contemporaneous study showed similar results. As for Covid, a Chinese study published March 9 showed HC has excellent in vitro effects. Other recent information suggests potential antiviral mechanisms of HC and chloroquine. […]    During the initial Chinese outbreak, Wuhan doctors observed that patients with lupus—a disease for which HC is a common treatment—did not seem to develop Covid-19. Of 178 hospital patients who tested positive, none had lupus and none were on HC. None of this Wuhan hospital’s dermatology department’s 80 lupus patients were infected with the novel coronavirus. The Wuhan doctors hypothesized that this may be due to long-term use of HC. They treated 20 Covid-19 patients with HC. Their result: “Clinical symptoms improve significantly in 1 to 2 days. After five days of chest CT examination, 19 cases showed significant absorption improvement.” […]
• BIG PHARMA COMPANY TO DONATE 130 MILLION DOSES OF HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE… Novartis CEO says Malaria drug is biggest hope against coronavirus:     ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan said his Sandoz generics unit’s malaria, lupus and arthritis drug hydroxychloroquine is the company’s biggest hope against the coronavirus, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday.  Novartis has pledged to donate 130 million doses and is supporting clinical trials needed before the medicine, which U.S. President Donald Trump also has been promoting, can be approved for use against the coronavirus.  Other companies including Bayer and Teva have also agreed to donate hydroxychloroquine or similar drugs, while Gilead Sciences is testing its experimental drug remdesivir against coronavirus.
• France Officially Sanctions Drug After 78 Of 80 Patients Recover From COVID-19 Within Five Days
• LESSONS FROM ITALY… Israeli doctor in Italy says innovative treatments offering hopes of recovery.  In Padua, the autoimmune medicine Tocilizumab has proven effective, but can only be used once it is established that no other viruses or bacteria are present in the patients’ bodies, he said. The hospital where he works has also seen positive results from the antiviral drug Remdesivir, he added.

6am – D/E     CHINA UPDATE:

• Wuhan residents believe 42,000 people may have died in the coronavirus outbreak there – not the 3,200 claimed by Chinese authorities. Wuhan residents estimate, based on calculations of cremations and urns now being returned to families, that between 42k-46k (!!) died in city + surrounding areas in the 2.5 months of lockdown. Far more than official figure of 2535 deaths. #COVID19
• Newsweek columnist Seth Abramson @SethAbramson: A single Maryland nursing home announced 66 new coronavirus cases today. NYPD has 700+ positive cases. India (pop. 1.34 billion) just went into lockdown, but says it had only *37* new cases today. I don’t think we appreciate yet how many nations are lying about their numbers.
• Will they ever learn? Chinese markets are still selling bats and slaughtering rabbits on blood-soaked floors as Beijing celebrates ‘victory’ over the coronavirus
• China Was Lauded As New ‘Global Leader’ For Distributing Medical Equipment To Fight Coronavirus, But Most Of That Equipment Is Reportedly Defective. China was lauded as positioning itself as the new global leader for distributing medical equipment to countries affected by the coronavirus this week, but now it appears most of that equipment was defective.The news comes after NBC News published a much-criticized story on Thursday titled “As U.S. struggles to stem coronavirus, China asserts itself as global leader.” The Netherlands received 1.3 million masks from China, and 600,000 were defective, according to Dutch media. Spain and the Czech Republic also ordered hundreds of thousands of test kits, and 80% of them were reportedly defective.
• Senior WHO Official Cuts Off Interview When Reporter Implies Taiwan Isn’t Part Of China. A senior World Health Organization official appeared to pretend he couldn’t hear a reporter and then cancelled the call when she implied Taiwan was a separate country from China. A Hong Kong-based outlet was conducting the interview with senior advisor to the WHO Bruce Aylward. Taiwan is one of the few Western-style democracies near China, and China’s communist government has long insisted that the international community treat Taiwan as a part of “Greater China,” despite having separate governments. The WHO complies and does not allow Taiwan to be a member state. The reporter asked whether that policy might change during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Chinese Markets Reopen — And They Still Sell Bats, Dogs And Cats.  Live animals are still for sale in Chinese food markets that reopened after the country recently declared victory over coronavirus.  Cages full of cats and dogs waiting for slaughter and the unsanitary preparation of animals is again reportedly a common sight in Chinese food markets, often called wet-markets, according to in-country correspondents with the Daily Mail. China ordered that its wet-markets be shut down in January, after facts emerged suggesting that coronavirus was first transmitted to humans via bats and other live animals sold in the often filthy places of commerce, according to Business Insider. However, now that China says it’s beaten the virus, the markets seem to have resumed business as usual.
• HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: China Shuts Down All Cinemas, Again.  Over the past two weeks, hundreds of movie theaters in the country had begun to reopen. No reason for the policy reversal was given, but insiders believe the government is worried about a potential second wave of coronavirus infections.

6am – F         MANUFACTURERS & RETAILERS “ESSENTIAL“: President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security released updated guidelines naming gun manufacturers and retailers as essential on Saturday, which means they are to stay open and operational nationwide during a Chinese coronavirus shutdown.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia

• Pelosi Will Need “After-Action Review” Of Trump Coronavirus Response; “As The President Fiddles, People Are Dying””
• CHUCK TODD VICIOUS TO TRUMP… BIDEN SAYS TODD’S ‘TOO HARSH’… Chuck Todd to Joe Biden: Does The President Have “Blood On His Hands” Over Slow Coronavirus Response?
• Justice Department reviews stock trades by lawmakers after coronavirus briefings  —  (CNN)The Justice Department has started to probe a series of stock transactions made by lawmakers ahead of the sharp market downturn stemming from the spread of coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the matter.

7am – B/C     BIDEN CAMPAIGN:

• Poll: 15% of Sanders supporters will vote for Trump if Biden is nominee; 80% would back Biden: If former Vice President Joe BIden secures the Democratic presidential nomination, 15% of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters will vote for President Donald Trump’s re-election, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. If accurate, that would represent a slightly larger defection than occurred after the bitter battle between Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, when 12% of Sanders voters broke for Trump in the general election. The good news for Biden is that in spring 2016, an ABC News poll found 20% of Sanders supporters said they would vote for Trump over Clinton, and far fewer ended up doing so. And 80 percent of Sanders’ supporters said they would back Biden over Trump, according to the poll. The 15% who said they plan to vote for Trump represents just 6% of Democrats and voters who lean Democratic, according to ABC News. Trump won 8% of Democrats in 2016.
• Tucker Carlson makes a bold prediction: Joe Biden ‘will not be the Democratic nominee’ in 2020

7am – D/E     What do you think – will it be over by April 30th?

• Trump Extends Social Distancing Guidelines To April 30 — Hopes That By June 1 ‘We’ll Be Well On Our Way To Recovery
• Governor Larry Hogan on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: “We think in two weeks, around Easter, we’re gonna be looking a lot more like New York.”
• ON CNN WITH JAKE TAPPER: Dr. Anthony Fauci says there could potentially be between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus and millions of cases. “I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong,” he adds.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – Kelly Stanton, a former nurse at Sibley Memorial Hospital in D.C.

• Sibley Memorial Hospital nurse quits over ‘lack of protection’ (WTOP) — As the shortage of protective gear worsens at hospitals across the county and in the D.C. region, some health care workers are having to choose between the health of their families and the health of their patients. Kelly Stanton, a nurse at Sibley Memorial Hospital, is among them. She said she has always been the helper, but the coronavirus pushed that notion to the limit. “There is nothing I could ever compare this to, and in my wildest imagination would I ever have believed this is even possible,” Stanton said. After 28 years of nursing, Stanton handed in her resignation to the Northwest D.C. hospital, which Johns Hopkins Medicine runs. “It was heart-wrenching, and it was extremely hard, but when they started saying that we were going to have to wear a mask and a gown a whole shift, and I’m telling you I would have been fired for that three weeks ago, it’s insane to me,” Stanton said. Each year, Stanton said, Sibley Hospital had its staff get fitted for a specialty N95 mask that seals to the health care provider’s face, unlike surgical masks that let air in. She said there is a specialized protocol for how to remove the masks to ensure doctors and nurses don’t transfer any viral particles on the outside of the mask onto themselves or another patient. However, when the masks are reused, she said the virus gets inside the mask and has the potential to spread to anyone nearby. In a statement, spokesman Gary Stephenson wrote in part, “Our strategies to preserve Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are consistent with the CDC guidelines on conserving surgical and N95 masks to ensure we adhere to all proper protocols for protection, screening, testing and treatment.

8am – B/C     ENTERTAINMENT NEWS DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC:

• Elton John opens Concert for America with message of hope: “Better days lie ahead”
• Celebs play from their homes for virus relief in FOX’s ‘Living Room Concert’
• Mariah Carey conferences in back-up singers, Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes get intimate and Tim McGraw sings from his DIVING BOARD in all-star living room benefit concert hosted by Elton John for COVID-19 relief
• LINDSAY LOHAN IS HERE TO HELP YOU: Now for just $250, you can get a personalized video from Lindsey Lohan about how turning to faith will rescue us all from the wrath or coronavirus.
• KENNEDY CENTER FIRES PEOPLE ANYWAY: Kennedy Center Lays Off Musicians After Getting $25 Million In Stimulus Bill

8am – D         INTERVIEW – MIKE LINDELL – The My Pillow Guy

• Mike Lindell says MyPillow making masks to fight COVID-19, calls on other manufacturers to help. (FOX News) — MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said Friday that he decided to start making face masks to aid in the fight against the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) because his passion has always been to help others. Appearing on “America’s Newsroom” with host Ed Henry, Lindell said that he couldn’t think of a better time to do so. “We started then to find out what we could make,” he said. “We worked with the administration. They have a coalition to what kind of masks are need out there. Obviously, we specialize in cotton and we found out different materials that they didn’t want — latex…and stuff. So, finally, we got the final prototype three days ago.” Lindell said it took MyPillow workers three days to turn over a 200,000-square-foot factory into a facility to produce the masks. They are currently making about 10,000 a day and aim to produce up to 50,000 a day.

8am – E         Maryland man charged after throwing 60-person bonfire party. (Fox5DC) — HUGHESVILLE, Md. – A Charles County man is charged with violating Gov. Larry Hogan’s social distancing order after police say he threw a bonfire party with more than 60 people. Police say 41-year-old Shawn Marshall Myers of Hughesville “refused multiple requests” to comply with Gov. Hogan’s order to keep social gatherings to less than 10 people after police crashed the party Friday night in the 15000 block of Lukes Lane. Police say they also responded to similar large crowd complaints at Myers’ home last Sunday, March 22. Gov. Hogan issued the order in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus. There are now more than 1,200 reported coronavirus cases in Maryland, along with 10 deaths. While penalties for breaking the order can include up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine, the sheriff’s office did not immediately say